


Shadows and Reflections

by lady__sansa_stark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, As I am want to do, Character death (but not the two we care about), F/M, Some good creepy / mystery / thriller vibes, Stoker AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 16:48:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12657510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady__sansa_stark/pseuds/lady__sansa_stark
Summary: "A shadow? Oh darling, all that lives in this house are shadows and reflections and creaks and groans. So you'd better soothe that boundless imagination of yours from now on."





	Shadows and Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> For my super awesome super sweet tumblr anon, who so graciously gave me a quote prompt!  
> I really hope you like it!!!

 

              Sansa stared at the body.

              The way the muted auburn curled around the head like a halo of dried blood. Pale skin growing paler (and colder) with each passing heartbeat that thundered in Sansa's chest. Arms and legs spread around her at unnatural angles. And eyes – blue like hers, blue like her mother’s – staring up at Sansa. Lifeless. It was a morbid sort of  _ beauty,  _ if one could see beauty in death. A master’s work painted with broken bones and a still heart. 

              In another lifetime: that could have been Sansa. In  _ this  _ lifetime: it nearly was her. 

              Sansa gripped the railing until her muscles hurt as she forced herself to memorize this moment. To etch the way the woman’s body lay unmoving beneath her. 

_ Because of me _ , she thought.  _ I killed her _ .

              There was the ghost of tears in her eyes, but the sobs wouldn’t come. They should have – she had been  _ family _ , after all, even if the woman wasn’t the best at...anything. Never a hug or a smile or a kind word directed at her niece. Sometimes never an act of acknowledging she existed. Yet, Sansa couldn’t help but wonder if the tears that pricked the edges of her eyes weren’t because of the dead woman sprawled upon the foyer, but because of the deadness that now existed within herself. A shadow, coiled around her heart. Tightening until she couldn’t breath.

              Only, Sansa didn’t fight against it. Had let it consume her.  _ Relished _ , even, in the cold, empty feel of it. 

              Sansa stared at her hand gripping the wood, knuckles white. It wasn’t there, but she could still see it, feel it: blood. Wet and dripping, staining her ivory skin with the truth.

              She  _ should  _ feel guilty. She  _ should  _ feel ashamed.

              She didn't. 

              “She would have told on us, sweetling,” a voice came from above Sansa, almost like a purr. Sansa didn't have to look up to know who it was. To know exactly the sort of mask he was wearing. The same when he helped her kill Joffrey: twisted pleasure.

              But she  _ did  _ look up at the second story landing. At the man standing there, unassuming, staring down at the dead body with the same morbid curiosity that had overtaken her. The house was eerily quiet now without her aunt’s screaming. Pleading – for the gods to take Sansa away; for the gods for  _ help _ ; to Sansa to  _ stop you fucking whore how dare you–  _

              There was a  _ crack _ when her aunt’s body hit the floor. The quieting echoes of her screaming. And after that: silence. Sansa could hear her heart hammering in that thick quietness that hung in the air. That filled her lungs with every breath.

              Sansa might have pushed the woman, yes, but...

              “There was a…” She began. A what? 

              There was  _ something,  _ but that's all Sansa knew. A vague, heavy darkness that spread throughout the manse the moment  _ he  _ stepped foot all those weeks ago. And how convenient he did when her aunt was most vulnerable. How convenient her aunt – with tears still in her eyes – adopted the man as her husband. Bestowed  _ everything _ on him. 

              In turn, the man relished in her death.

              Oh, yes, something dark came along with the visitor that night. Something far, far worse than the way he smiled at his dead wife. Or the way he was now staring at Sansa.

              “A shadow,” she finally finished, for lack of a better word. She  _ felt  _ the shadow, still wrapped around her heart. Caressing it with soft, slow strokes in tune with its frantic beating. Whispering  _ congratulations  _ into her mind:

_ Congratulations for killing your aunt. Your last living relative. You’re alone now. Who do you have, who will have you? _

              Only, those shadowy whispers sounded too familiar. Too much like the sweet nothings  _ this man _ (her uncle for only short months) loved to bestow upon her. Her body shivered – just like it did whenever his breath tickled her ear, her neck. 

              “A shadow?” he asked, leaning against the railing and staring down at the sprawl of the wife he once had. A smile played at his lips – far from the thing a fresh grieving widow should have. 

              Sansa nodded even though he couldn't see her. 

              His eyes slowly slid from the dead woman with red-hair and ivory skin, to the young mirror of one that was (mercifully) alive. The one he  _ chose _ . He continued: “Oh, sweetling… all that lives in this house are shadows and reflections, creaks and groans.” He stepped away from the railing towards the topmost stair, taking one solitary step down, the wood beneath his feet creaking as if to emphasize his words. As if he had the power to control the will of anything, dead or alive. 

_ Doesn't he? _

              He stared at Sansa from the top of the staircase, Sansa halfway down. And a dead body lying at the other end. A hand extended for her: not commanding, but  _ inviting _ . Like the inviting glances he made sure she saw when he’d been snogging his freshly-made wife. Like the inviting touches he left upon her shoulders whilst Sansa played the piano. Like the inviting way he offered her the knife, still fresh with Joffrey’s blood. Letting her  _ finish the boy _ . He had taken care of the body while Sansa rushed back to this harrowing house to burn her clothes, wash the blood and mud from her skin. Swirling crimson water rushing down the drain. Sansa memorized the pattern as she touched herself, uncertain and unknown heat clouding her thoughts from the way the boy struggled. She muffled her cries into her free hand. Still, she heard the echo of her release against the wet tile.

              The wood groaned beneath her feet as she took the stairs up, slowly, carefully. One at a time, a new octave of creak as she rose. Meeting him on the same step, nearly the same height. 

              Sansa rose that final step higher, looking down at the man whose shadow slithered between her ribs. Mixed with the tendrils of her own darkness. Coaxed hers out, stoked it into a wildfire.

              The man stared up at her. And his smile deepened to rival the devil’s.

              A hand reached to intertwine fingers with hers. Kissed the pad of each finger, never once letting his gaze stray from hers. “A shadow…” he repeated, chuckling to himself. She felt it reverberate through that single point of contact of his mouth and her hand, echo all the way to the burning shadow that wrapped around her heart. “Oh, sweetling, you'd better soothe that boundless imagination of yours from now on.”

              He rose on tip-toe, not at all feeling  _ ashamed _ in being lower than Sansa. Their heads were nearly level now. He leant forward, lips barely a hair’s breadth away from the bottom of her own. Waiting. 

              Again. 

              He was  _ always  _ waiting for her. 

              For Sansa to come to him the night of Robert’s funeral. Only words spoken, and that twisted smile on his lips. Confusion plain on her face at the sudden emergence of an uncle she had never known. Of someone her aunt claimed was close to her family. Of someone her aunt forced Sansa to  _ get along with _ and  _ if you don’t like it you can get your bum self out _ .

              For Sansa to let him sit beside her as she played the piano for the umpteenth time. Her aunt busy dealing with housekeepers just outside – Sansa could see her through a slit in the curtains. The man could, too. That didn’t stop him from joining a duet, his hands deft; sure, long fingers never once stepping out of place on the keys. It was all Sansa could do not to think on how his body pressed side-by-side with hers. On how his deft fingers knew  _ more  _ than how to play piano. She was breathless when the music ringed its conclusion in the still air.

              For Sansa to let him help with Joffrey. How the boy’s eyes bulged when the rope wrapped tighter and tighter around his neck. Or how the blood flowed so smoothly from a creature whose blood should have been black, as vile as his intentions.

              For Sansa to let him touch her. The first time, the second, the...however many since. How many times did it take – small, probing presses, further and further into her personal space (willingly allowed, she could not forget that), against the stone facade she had built outside of her fragile skin – before she let the man truly touch her? And  _ gods _ how right she was about the deftness of his fingers. The careful practice of his mouth against her skin. The fullness when he finally seated himself inside her last night. And then this morning. And then once again – their cries of completion mixed with the screams of the woman now dead beneath them.

              For Sansa to give in to the darkness and send her aunt tumbling with a  _ crack _ .

              Sansa  _ knew _ . 

              Of course she knew, even if she didn’t want to admit it these past weeks.

              It wasn't just him who whispered the action into her fingers (“One little  _ shove  _ was all it would take,” he suggested whilst linking his fingers between hers, kissing the palm of her hand. That was less than a month ago. Long after Sansa allowed him reserved access to her body). It wasn’t just the newfound shadows that slithered inside her with each kiss, with each touch.

              There was something else inside her, always had been something else. Cowering, waiting. 

              For someone to pull it free. To kindle it into the thing she truly was, and not the perfect, prim thing she pretended.

              Sansa looked down at the man whose shadows planted themselves so firmly inside her chest. Slowly, she leant in to complete their kiss. Not the first. Not the  _ hundredth _ . And not – she thought with a certain warning in her mind that she quieted – the last.

              When they pulled back, Sansa stared deep past the mask that was her uncle. And saw in Petyr – in the shadows of his eyes, once a beautiful mossy green, now nothing but solid black – a reflection of herself.

              It didn’t terrify her anymore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [The inspiration quote in question was: _“A shadow? Oh darling, all that lives in this house are shadows and reflections and creaks and groans. So you'd better soothe that boundless imagination of yours from now on.”_
> 
> It comes from Crimson Peaks, which I’ve never seen. But I’ve gone ahead and molded it a bit with the movie Stoker. Hope y'all liked it!!]


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